


2+2=5

by Zigzagwanderer



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Office, Romantic Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-05 16:14:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17328293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zigzagwanderer/pseuds/Zigzagwanderer
Summary: Will works at a tech job in an office.





	2+2=5

It’s never good business to fall in love with the new guy.

Sure, it’s _tempting_ , when he invents Noodle Wednesdays even as he’s unpacking his vintage rolodex.

When he does what no other Head of Human Resources has ever done, and persuades Franklyn that Stinking Bishop should not be matured in the stationery cupboard. 

When he comes all over you in your dreams with _exasperating_ regularity. 

 

“When’s the wedding?” Bev hollers across the cubicle walls. 

“I…What?” Will drops his eyes, dripping dumpling guts all over the chilly tundra of his workstation. 

Mr Lecter is walking by The Warren on his way to the staff cafeteria. With his cuffs rolled up to the elbow and his crazy-loud tie loosened just enough to make Will wriggle against his ergonomic seat-pad. 

“Oh. Right. Uh…end of May. Molly brought it forward a few months. Her accountant told her the whole long-term, long-distance thing had to stop.”

“Shitfuck. Aren’t you supposed to be doing the invitations?”

Mr Lecter pivots on the mezzanine, a dancer in goddamn pinstripes. 

“Excuse me. I have not yet had the pleasure of introducing myself to the analysis teams. If I might interrupt?” 

He’s formal, in a stupid-cute way. Bev throws him a potsticker, and glows when he praises her mom’s seasoning. 

Turns out he’s an expert in Japanese calligraphy.

Within minutes, Will is nodding, for once out-negotiated. 

“Shall we say eight o’clock, then? I also have some sketches of my own that may prove inspiring.”

“What the hell, Will?” Bev hisses, afterwards, email evangelist spreading the gospel to Alana in legal. “Did he just offer to show _you_ his etchings?” She bangs _return_ and tucks her legs up, lotus-style. “Do you even know how to visit with actual people?”

The Head of Statistical Anomalies grits his teeth. An evening discussing deckle edging and ivory-versus-oatmeal envelopes is the kind of _idea shower_ that should ice Will’s unwanted enthusiasm for Project Cheekbones once and for all. 

Because new guys _disappoint_. 

It’s contractual.

Only Hannibal clearly never read that memo.

 

They talk about art, philosophy, beloved-yet-cancelled TV shows. 

The financial year winds up, and Will has lunch-times and godawful opera forays and the odd, awkwardly-innocent sleep-over with Hannibal, all the while ticking off the boxes on some internal checklist of desirability he hadn’t even realised was there. 

And, when they do disagree, as in their never-ending gumbo debate, it’s even more _delicious_ than when they don’t. 

 

Productivity increases. Corporate relations have never been better.

Then Will actually agrees to help out with the annual Easter team-building event, and Bev suddenly stops making crude jokes about inter-departmental mergers. And starts looking _worried_.

“Watch the paintwork,” Will scowls, proprietorially, as Brian helps them to unload the Bentley.

It’s a hot afternoon. Thundery. Hannibal has micromanaged Will into eschewing the usual plaid. 

Will feels weird in the tight blue top, right up until he catches Hannibal looking at him _that_ way, at which point Will calculates that it’s the horny, cock-achingly _good_ kind of weird.

And, without checking his sums twice, Will smiles back. 

“What is it with you guys, then?” Bev has already raided the picnic cooler for a couple beers, while Hannibal was occupied setting up some easels down by the lakeside. “Can’t either of you see that you’re… _dating_?”

Will wants to explain that he and Hannibal are merely colleagues, who happen to work and play well together. 

But, how can he, when the man is, apparently, the other half of him?

Hannibal has just returned from addressing a conference on modern slavery in Washington, and Will has all but bled out, haemorrhaging happiness, the entire weekend. 

“Jesus, Bev. You used to complain I wasn’t sociable enough.” Will grunts, descending the velvet green declines of the park.

To a platform where Hannibal is sitting.

Buck naked.

On a red fucking cushion.

 

There’s a mouldy old boathouse that’s folksy and therefore highly unsterile, about a quarter-mile along the boardwalk.

Will nudges the leprous door shut behind him.

It gets darker, and darker, and darker.

Finally, Hannibal fumbles his way in.

“Don’t.” Will has wiped his wet face on his dumb pretty sleeve. “I know I have no rights in this.” 

“We spoke of hosting a life drawing class, Will? Something different, I believe you said? Something mature? Enriching?”

“Must have missed the meeting where you became the model.”

Hannibal stands next to Will. Brushing elbows. 

“You have been understandably…preoccupied, of late.”

The wedding hangs over them, Damoclean and sprigged with apple blossom.

“Molly is my oldest friend.” 

She’s been there for him when his life was all shades of shit. When he had encephalitis. When Winston died in his arms. 

But the hut is quiet, and close. And Hannibal has done up his white shirt hastily; it gapes wide where he’s jumped a button.

Will can smell the beating saltiness of Hannibal’s skin, over all of the stagnancy he has surrounded himself with. 

He wants to _have_ Hannibal, so fucking badly. 

Wants to wake up sprawled on top of him, sweaty and unhygienic, and make them late for their commute. 

Wants to get obscene texts from Hannibal at work, or have him forget to be professional now and again during office hours, and absent-mindedly call Will _darling, sweetheart, baby_. 

Wants to open himself up for once, and fall without thinking first.

“I have to go,” he says instead. 

And then Hannibal touches him, gently; a hand against his chest as Will turns. And Will leans into that broad spread of palm and fingers and feels his nipple harden beneath the pressure, and puts his face up to be kissed. 

“I know you’re not…that we can’t…But I hated them being able to see what I can’t; I see _everything_ about you, Hannibal, but I’m not allowed _that…_ ”

As a mathematician, Will’s God is Honesty. Clean and absolute. 

As they meet, at last, lips parting, to tongue and to taste, Will is telling himself as many lies as he can. 

He feels anything but clean.

Hannibal pulls them flush. 

“Oh.” Will murmurs. 

He arches his neck and shuts his eyes and Hannibal mouths along his bone and his muscle. 

Will is hard and soft, simultaneously, he is a grey area, he is an indeterminate, wavering line, an unequal sign. 

He is Hannibal’s.

But, of course, he _so_ isn’t. 

“I have to go,” he says again.

And this time, Hannibal lets him leave.

 

Bev brings him in a quart of home-made chicken soup. Every day. As if Will was suffering from ‘flu.

Hannibal? Well, for him she makes those fiddly little wontons he likes so much. And each time, she crosses her fingers and gives him enough for two. 

 

“I told Molly to stay on the coast. Did you deal with the Murasaki file?”

“What? Thank _fuck_...Everyone was praying you'd both see sense... "

“No.” Will staples something to something else and people glance up at the noise. “Bev, can we not keep doing this? I mean that I’m going to get married to Molly next week and then move into her place. Her career’s important and her friends and her night-school are all there, so…” 

“You’re _leaving_?”

Productivity is through the roof. What else is there but to punch the clock?

Will swallows. “The Mercer site just lost their anomalist. I did the relocation forms this morning…” 

He takes off his glasses. Cleans them thoroughly. Spray. Cloth. Replace. Easy to get clarity, when all you see is numbers.

“I can’t stay here,” he says, and amid the chaos, it is that dearest of all things; a plain and simple fact.

 

The relocation request is straightforward. 

The section committee won’t miss Will and his twitchy lack of bullshit, and Mr Lecter runs Human Resources so goddamn brilliantly, that he can fill the gap in The Warren with some other number bunny _embarrassingly_ quickly.

Source another human.

Find another new guy. 

Because, really, is anyone irreplaceable?

Only, Hannibal seems to have finally gotten around to reading the small print on himself, and has decided to become a disappointment.

Which forces Will to storm into Hannibal’s office as best can, the very next day. 

Tripping over his shoelaces and his emotions, and waving the processed paperwork madly in his fist. 

“What exactly do you think you’re doing?”

Hannibal puts down his pen and gets up.

Walks around the desk and closes the door and pulls the blinds. 

Takes Will’s waist and holds him tight and kisses the fuck out of him. 

“I am not sure,” Hannibal answers, eventually. “I may be begging for a promotion? From friend to lover?”

He bites, pleasingly. “I can certainly kneel, if that will lend weight to my petition?” 

Will breathes, and lets go of everything. Lets go of the loose leaves of his life, which scatter inefficiently to the floor.

The stamp across the top copy is crisp and definitive.

It reads; ‘Transfer Denied Due to Business Need.”

Only someone in authority has lined out the last but one word. 

Will thinks he might have the page framed, and hung above his monitor.

Or maybe, yet, above their bed.


End file.
